Internet-based social networking has become a ubiquitous part of day-to-day life for people around the world. Websites like Facebook™, Twitter™, Bebo™, Orkut™ and Qzone™ are regularly used by hundreds of millions of people. Each of these sites, and others, allows people to connect to each other within the site, typically based on some common or shared bond, such as being friends, coworkers, classmates, relatives, or through sharing some common interest, like music, sports, religion, hobbies, etc., or simple curiosity. For the purposes of this application, the generic terms “friend” or “friends” will be used to indicate one or more interconnected users within a particular Internet-based social networking website, and the generic terms “social network” or “social networks” will be used as a placeholder for any such Internet-based social networking website.
In at least some social networks, it is possible for a user to manually input or post a location of where that user is currently located, or where that user may be going, so as to inform or update friends, albeit in a non-real-time, manually manner. However there is no way, or at least no safe way, for a user who is mobile, e.g., while driving, biking or walking on busy streets, to safely provide real-time updates or posts. Thus, there is a mobile user need to have equipment or systems that are capable of directly interfacing with Internet-based social networks for safely providing friends with location-aware updates.